MidiFrog

The music blew through the hot,

sticky summer nights like

a cool ocean breeze.

Throbbing, pulsating waves of bass

and rhythmic guitar underlay

the soulful tenor sax.

Crisp drums and cymbals punctured

the darkness and beneath it all was

an old Hammond B-3 organ

. . . sometimes churchlike,

. . . sometimes orchestral

. . . most of the time,

almost talking, almost singing . . .

in the raspy voice of pure raw blues.

In the 50's, Kinston, North Carolina was a military leave town for Marines at Camp LeJeune in nearby Jacksonville.

The American Legion hosted weekly dances where macho, skint-head recruits would vie for the attention of local girls.

I was too young for that . . . a skinny, poor, white kid just learning what life was all about. I would lie awake a few blocks away, listen to the music and dream a different world.

The bands were Black . . . their audience White.

They played from a balcony overlooking the dance floor. This was the 50's in the mid-South. They took their breaks outside . . . separate and apart.

Eventually, I became brave enough

to sneak out to join them in the parking lot.

I loved the names . . .

Willie Moore and the Magnificents . . .

Sonny Bannerman and the Night Owls . . .

Ulysees Hardy and the Mighty Blue Notes . . .

The Upsetters with Maceo Parker

Dick Knight and the Bossatettes

Most of them are gone now and I never got to thank them for what they did for me.

Little did they know how they and the music would influence my life. It changed me . . . made me different from my peers on that side of town . . . more confident, more worldly, less bigoted.

The music made me, and in later years as I tried to make the music in a score of little bands, it took me to places I would have never been.

The music brings back memories . . . my first gig, my first love. The music became a passion that sustains me even now.

When I get lonely . . . . when I get depressed . . . I play the music. And, somehow the world and life becomes a little better.